What would Wilt be like in todays game?

[Vino24]

According to 3ball: "Wilt would be a very rich man's AD or prime Dwight Howard in today's game"


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[Vino24]

3ball basically said he has Dwight Howard as the 2nd GOAT player lmao

[ScalsFan21]

3ball getting something right? :applause:

I gotta agree tbh. It's hard to compare across eras, but the idea that Wilt would somehow tower above all his peers today in a way even remotely similar to what he did in the 60s is just ludicrous. Even accounting for advances in training. That was and will always be the last time someone could stand so far ahead of his peers in this league.

You stick Davis in the 60s, he'd probably be a more injury-prone version of Wilt. :confusedshrug:

*Oh nvm, I just saw the original discussion lmao

[3ball]

Apparently you guys can't read

I said wilt would be a very rich man's prime Dwight Howard

In other words.... much much better than prime Dwight Howard..

I used Dwight Howard because their body types are similar, with wilt having a naturally much bigger bone structure and strength despite the lack of modern training.. give him modern training and basketball would end as we know it

[Vino24]

Apparently you guys can't read

I said wilt would be a very rich man's prime Dwight Howard

In other words.... much much better than prime Dwight Howard..

I used Dwight Howard because their body types are similar, with wilt having a naturally much bigger bone structure and strength despite the lack of modern training.. give him modern training and basketball would end as we know it
No. You said rich man's AD or prime Dwight Howard.

[3ball]

No. You said rich man's AD or prime Dwight Howard.
That means a very rich man's Dwight Howard

The "very rich man" applies to both

And regardless, it should be obvious what I meant

[GimmeThat]

according to 3ball, he would elevate Draymond Green to GOAT status

[ScalsFan21]

Apparently you guys can't read

I said wilt would be a very rich man's prime Dwight Howard

In other words.... much much better than prime Dwight Howard..

I used Dwight Howard because their body types are similar, with wilt having a naturally much bigger bone structure and strength despite the lack of modern training.. give him modern training and basketball would end as we know it

Curry-led teams would repeatedly thrash Wilt-led teams in this era. Chamberlain wouldn't be a top five positive on-court impact on the planet today.

[Vino24]

That means a very rich man's Dwight Howard

The "very rich man" applies to both

And regardless, it should be obvious what I meant
Doesn't matter. Where do you rank Dwight Howard? do you have him ahead of Mark Eaton or Craig Ehlo?

[Gougou]

Quite true cuz Wilt was a physical gifted athlete and if u give him the proper training he will dominate.

[theballerFKA Ace]

You cant compare AD and Dwight Howard to Wilt. He was fast, athletic super strong and a motivated scorer. In modern shoes, Wilt's standing reach would be 9'7.5, yet he could move like a gazelle. Think about it, the difference between Wilt's standing reach and AD's is the same difference between John Wall and AD. :oldlol: Dwight's standing reach is only an inch taller than AD's. Players like Wilt and even Ralph Sampson would have wrecked this league.

Wilt is like a Boban with more strength, speed, stamina and footwork.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--6Rd9L3BN--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/c3mdgbbbjlcauzbvpho5.jpg

[Kblaze8855]

He was a good bit bigger than Dwight but a better total athlete and he had a passion for rebounding and blocking shots. People think Wilt was a scorer because he scored so much...but he wasnt. Wilt wasnt a scorer by choice. He was a defensive player....a rebounder.....a passer. He was told to score a lot early in his career and his physical advantages were so great it was easy....but he didnt just want to. Left to his own style hed play like he did in Philly and on the Lakers. Hed take 12-15 shots and shut down the lane. When you listen to him really talk about what hes proud of it was rebounding records, blocking so many shots, and never fouling out.

So maxed out Dwight isnt that far off. He was more coordinated than Dwight as well though its hard to tell from well picked out clips of him post injury on the lakers looking weird on the 18 seconds of post ups people have seen.

He was bigger than Dwight, faster, had a greater reach and could jump out of the gym.

Worst case hes a DPOY type who leads the league in rebounds and puts up 18-22 a game off sheer physical talent.

You cant really assume what hed do with the ball on offense though because nobody is allowed to play that way now. Guys who can score back to the basket gradually transition to pick and pop or spot up bigs.

Wilt growing up today wouldnt be anything like he was....and if you just move him through time from his prime to now it would be into a league that didnt want him to play as he did even if hed be capable of it if asked. Be like dropping Steph into 1975. Could he still make 30 footers? Sure. But why on earth would he attempt them for 2 points? You dont. You go to the basket....you give it to the bigs. Why take a 35% shot without the potential extra point to make up for it? You would barely recognize his game after a while because there would be no justification or request for him to play the same.

None of those guys could play the same today....and people make that out to mean worse when its just....different.

[iamgine]

The problem with really old players is we often only see their highlights. Try to see full games/half like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsYos18Esdo

[iamgine]

If we just transport Wilt, a really huge problem is his FT. He consistently shot sub-40FT% in the playoff. That just kills your offense.

[Psileas]

The problem with really old players is we often only see their highlights. Try to see full games/half like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsYos18Esdo

There are very few full halves, let alone games, from players from Wilt's era, including Wilt - and most of these games not only come from Wilt's low scoring seasons, they don't even belong to his "vintage" games - hell, he rarely won any of them. Imagine, e.g, the only available full game footage of Jordan being a few games of Wizards' Jordan, Game 6 of '95 East semis, Game 5 of '88 East semis, the '87 ASG and some random Bulls regular season game, with Jordan having a 2nd rate 10-25 FG game. If we were to judge his GOAT status based on this, things wouldn't look so good, either...

Btw, despite Wilt playing injured in that specific game, I don't see anyone outperform him. Only Luke Jackson seems to come close, and you can see he easily had his best game of the whole season:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jackslu01/gamelog/1967/

[bizil]

Wilt would be like a leaner and more athletic version of Shaq. Two guys so dominant and efficient in the paint. So much so that it would supercede today's era of small ball and 3 point shooting. And the SCARY PART about Wilt would be his ability to defend the pick and roll shit pretty good at 7'1 and 280 pounds! That's how freakish an athlete Wilt was!

He wouldn't average anywhere close to 50 PPG. But 28 PPG and 15 RPG would be DOABLE for Wilt AT BEST! At worst, a better version of Dwight Howard. Plus don't forget Wilt was a great passing big man as well. Giants as efficient as Wilt and Shaq would be 20 PPG 10RPG in ANY ERA! But they might not be as valuable because teams worry about spacing the floor and bigs guarding in space more often.

Dwight Howard with all due respect isn't a great comparison IN TERMS of dominance. And Wilt and AD have is a wack comparison. AD, Giannis, and KG are the closest we've seen to positionless TWO WAY 7 foot players. Giannis is the king of that, AD is the next closest in today's game, and KG is the godfather for it.

[Marchesk]

Curry-led teams would repeatedly thrash Wilt-led teams in this era. Chamberlain wouldn't be a top five positive on-court impact on the planet today.

This is just a really bad take. You surround Wilt with shooters, and you have a superior team to the Warriors. Wilt was an excellent passer. He would rim protect better than anyone today, and he's at least as good as Drummond rebounding. Also, he would be insanely efficient inside in today's game. He shot 68% on 24 points in 1967, averaging almost 8 assists for a 67 win team. If Wilt's role is defense, passing and high percentage shots at the rim, he could certainly dominate that way.

His one big problem would be FT shooting. But you take that same as with Shaq. And yes, Wilt would be athletic enough to switch and defend outside the paint.

[iamgine]

There are very few full halves, let alone games, from players from Wilt's era, including Wilt - and most of these games not only come from Wilt's low scoring seasons, they don't even belong to his "vintage" games - hell, he rarely won any of them. Imagine, e.g, the only available full game footage of Jordan being a few games of Wizards' Jordan, Game 6 of '95 East semis, Game 5 of '88 East semis, the '87 ASG and some random Bulls regular season game, with Jordan having a 2nd rate 10-25 FG game. If we were to judge his GOAT status based on this, things wouldn't look so good, either...

Btw, despite Wilt playing injured in that specific game, I don't see anyone outperform him. Only Luke Jackson seems to come close, and you can see he easily had his best game of the whole season:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jackslu01/gamelog/1967/
It's much better than highlights. Ideally, it should be a game where the player play his usual game, not when he's shooting lights out or had a poor performance. No one is judging GOAT status. The question we're answering is what would Wilt be like in today's game.

[bizil]

The trifecta of Dream, Admiral, and Ewing would be THE IDEAL TRUE CENTERS to play in today's game. All three were great two way players. All three were great midrange shooters out to 15-18 foot. And all three were among the most athletic TRUE CENTERS to ever play in the league. And all three could defend the pick and roll shit very good to great. By true centers, I'm talking guys who HARDLY IF EVER played the PF position. They easily could have, but they were born to man the middle and dominate.

Even in today's game among the true centers (not an AD type) they would be more ideal than even Embid, Boogie, Jokic, etc when u consider both sides of the court. And they were such great midrange shooters 15-18 foot out that they could likely have added the three point range in today's game. But even if they didn't, it wouldn't matter in my opinion!